A discussion regarding the pension reform and increasing the retirement age has been ongoing in Ukraine. The Day repeatedly wrote about the ways of solving this problem. Most experts believe that it is necessary to increase the retirement age for Ukrainians, but only if other social reforms are also carried out. Already today Ukraine has nine pensioners per ten workers, so payments to the Pension Fund are only set to increase.
Arsenii Yatseniuk, a people’s deputy and leader of the political party Front of Changes, agrees with this. While in Dnipropetrovsk he stated that increasing the retirement age would not solve the solvency problem that the Pension Fund of Ukraine is bound to encounter.
“This issue is closely connected with solving the unemployment problem,” pointed out Yatseniuk. “Next year the ‘hole’ in the Pension Fund’s budget will increase to 40 billion hryvnias. The country needs a pension reform, otherwise soon there will be no money to pay pensions. The pension reform suggested by the current government is copied from the proposal of the International Monetary Fund, which requires the increase of the retirement age in Ukraine in exchange for another loan.”
According to him, increasing the retirement age is possible only if average life expectancy in the country is simultaneously increased. Indeed, how can one increase the retirement age for men to 65 years if their average life expectancy is 62? “Surely, this way they solve the problem of the Pension Fund — people simply won’t reach the age at which they can draw pensions,” added the leader of the Front of Changes.
As it is known, specialists of the Institute of Demography and Social Studies of Ukraine advise a gradual increase of the retirement age — not to 65 years at once, but increasing it by half a year every six months.
In Yatseniuk’s opinion, this option can be improved by stimulating citizens by means of giving them a choice when to retire. For example, a person is advised to retire at the age of 60 years and six months, and then he or she will get a pension that is 10 or 15 percent more than the pension presupposed by the effective legislation.
Increasingly often we hear suggestions from deputies, economists, and demographers on how to better reform the pension system. Time will show what our government will choose. The main thing is to carry the reform out painlessly and in the way most acceptable for each citizen.
